


Fic  Sharpe's Russian

by bluegerl



Category: Sharpe FPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:48:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluegerl/pseuds/bluegerl





	1. Chapter 1

Title                Sharpe’s Russian,.  
Author            [](http://bluegerl.livejournal.com/profile)[ **bluegerl**](http://bluegerl.livejournal.com/)    
Archive          [](http://rugbytackle.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rugbytackle**](http://rugbytackle.livejournal.com/)  
Post to            [](http://sharpe-thinking.livejournal.com/profile)[ **sharpe_thinking**](http://sharpe-thinking.livejournal.com/)  
Category         FPS crossover.  Richard Sharpe/Nicholai Luzhin.  
Rating             NC17  Warnings  male bad language  
Disclaimer       Nothing to do with them, I just had fun making all this up.  
Comments.      Dear friend, helper and support, Beta [](http://rubyelf.livejournal.com/profile)[**rubyelf**](http://rubyelf.livejournal.com/) has had all the trouble of cleaning this for me. I have made the mistakes.  
Summary.       The Duke of Wellington decides to give Sharpe something to do.  
  
[Chapter 2 here.](http://bluegerl.livejournal.com/100386.html#cutid1)

The Howling Ghost 

  

   Richard squeezed himself out of the narrow window, looked for the last time at the graceful, pretty figure sprawled on the rumpled bed, then pushed back and dropped.  His feet made no sound on the soft ground.  He quickly gathered up his boots, shoved a hand inside to check if his bundle of gold was there, grabbed his bundle of clothes and sprinted naked down the alley.  His body, his genitals especially moist after the recent activity, striking chill in the very early morning air.  
  
  At the alley entrance he dropped his bundles, rubbed his scratched belly and propped himself against the wall to pull on his green pants.  He shoved his legs down and his feet into his boots, at the same time trying to haul his shirt over his head.  He set off in a jumble of clothes, still fumbling with the buttons of the pants and that over-decorated uniform jacket, quite unaware of the large flapping shirt tail that signalled his position as he ran, two, three, four, walked, two, three, four, ran, two, three, four, in the ground-eating trot of the Rifles Brigade.   


    Four miles outside the town Richard could smell the encampment.  Horses first, then woodsmoke, and a hint of sheepflesh burning.  _Mutton again for Nosey.  Him and his mutton._  


 _When did he, Richard bloody Lt. Sharpe ever get bloody crisp roast mutton?  Oh well, what he'd had last night was better'n anything Nosey had had I'll warrant!_   He tied his red sash tighter, flattening the bulge of gold against his belly.  


    Patrick waved the half-loaf of bread made small by the size of his hand, and beckoned Sharpe over.  


"Bss mmnggddh -   mddh keein dlkd ih ds... Bow"  and smirked round the quarter loaf rounding his cheeks.  


"Not bloody Now ..." Richard groaned "I need me sleep!  What's he want?"  


"Egh innnaa gnner idjdk  in  ink?"  


"Oh, you think eh?  Yer not bloody paid to think!  It’s another blasted stupid escapade, isn't it?"  Lt. Sharpe had been very well aware of  Major Hogan's sneezing and trumpeting round the camp for the last four days.  His spine walked... _Hogan, some bloody nigger in someone's unhappy woodpile he is!_  


     Lt. R. Sharpe buttoned the last two buttons into a choice of three buttonholes and presented himself at the entrance to His Noble Lordship the Duke of Wellington's tent.  


"Dick, the old sod wants to see me, any idea what about?"  
  
  
Major Dick Courtney shook his head, winced at the pain he felt, and muttered, "No idea old son, best you go in and find out."

      Lt. Sharpe stalked into Nosey's presence, stood straight and silent three precise strides from the paper-strewn table.  


      Nosey's head slowly raised, the cold black eyes regarded Sharpe from the toes of his filthy much-repaired boots, up over his dusty torn green uniform trews that fitted the thighs _SO_ exactly...  _Dammit, did the bloody man POUR himself into them every morning?_  and finally the eyes came to rest on the tired, baggy-eyed face of his favourite trouble-shooter, Lt. Richard Sharpe, bastard extraordinary.  


       Richard stood, immobile.  He was quite well aware of Nosey's slow scrutiny, and its desires, but he was a ranker really, and certainly no proper officer.  _Well out of Nosey's ... reach.  He did have an overwhelming desire himself to undo his trews, and scratch furiously at his tackle, and letting a bit of air round a rather stuck together cock cementing itself to his whiskery belly._  


"Sharpe."  An enormous sneeze entered the tent.  "Ah Hogan.  Hogan, shall we enlighten this eager beaver who is obviously itching for release... " Richard grinned and wriggled his arse a little... "from the unrelieved boredom of camp life?"

        Hogan sneezed again, flapped wildly with a discoloured kerchief the size of a piece of bed-linen,  "Indeed Sor, Sharpe indeedy needs exercise. Lots of it, and while he's at it, we can be getting on with our own plans... eh?"  
He lowered his rotund form onto a bench beside the table and reached for a roll of paper.  


"This here, young feller-me-lad, is a map. A _GOOD_ map. Let me not hear you say it's made by a blind monkey, because it's _MY_ map!  I made it with my own bloody fair white hand - d'yer hear?"  


"Sir."  


"Aaach, don't you go 'Sorring' me, you scamp, you were on the rampage last night. Tell me lad, is there no woman in this benighted town who is safe from your forays, eh?  EH?   Aaaaah-chooo!"  The unrolled map snapped itself shut.  


Wellington cleared his throat. "The point is, Sharpe, there's this brigand.  He's not Spanish or French,  he's really foreign from some place no-one knows much of, the North Pole it has been said.  He's apparently so cold-blooded he froze his mother to death on his birth.  He's wanted by both Napoleon and King George, and a few other kingdoms as well I believe.  Even the Pope has been bothered by the existence of this creature!"  


"And ... Sir?"  


"And, Sharpe, why don't  _YOU_ go and catch him?"  


"Me... Sir...  me?  Erm… where..."  Richard stumbled to silence.  


"Aye Laddie,  _YOU!_ You're a scallywag, a street urchin, a soldier, a whore and a bastard... you go catch him!"

  
"Sir... where... what with... how..."  Richard Sharpe thought   _Here we go again.  Another bloody stupid, impossilble, rancid, stinking, arsehole,cruddy, futile, shit-shovelling, prince-pleasing,..._   He ran out of imprecations, and wished he was back in bed with that raving sex maniac of last night.   _Now, he'd get probably nowt for mebbe bloody months, and unless he could take Pat... no bloody release at all except his own resources.. SOD AND DAMMIT TO HELL!_  


"Yes Sir.  When do I start, Sir?"    Hogan sneezed gently,  


"As soon as you've joined us for breakfast, and washed your... " glancing deliberately down at Richard's middle where his hand had been rubbing quite hard.  Richard whipped his hand upwards to a smart salute, and hoped his blush didn't show in the rosy shade of the tent.  


"Sir!"  Turning, he snapped out of the tent and almost ran into Patrick.  


"Pat, get the blasted bathwater on... I'm filthy.  I've orders to wash me...  meself!"  


 While he washed, he enlightened Patrick with the little he knew. "Tell yer more when I've had breakfast.   Hope it's mutton... “  

  
Sergeant Patrick Harper grunted.  "Bring a bit back for Old Faithful will youse, and not just the bloody bone like last time!”

       Two hours later Richard Sharpe Lt. (temporary Major), was crouched in his own little tent trying to read the Hoganmap spread out on his trestle bed.  


"Pat, just three of us.  No more.  Hell...  three!  Have to scour this bloody country looking for this cold-blooded thiever of guns, ammo, equipment, women, jewellery, all the usual stuff, which apparently he funnels back through the mountains to a place we've never heard of!  Bloody miles away Pat, like the bloody moon, it's so far!"  


"Rooskyland?"  Patrick Harper scratched his bum.  "Aye, Rooskyland, tis way up in Northland, them Viking places... "  


Hagman interposed  "Who is this fellow?  Can he shoot?"  


"What's he called?" Cooper asked.  


"Nicoleye, or Nikkerliye... the Faithful!   What a moniker?  What the hell is he faithful to?  The way he goes on, I gather there's no women in it, and the Church certainly doesn't figure, so that leaves the Devil, don't it?"  


"Mebbe he's sold his Soul?" Perkins chirped " 'Tis said they do that, and can't ever be saved..."  


"Nay, lad, there's good in us all, never fear, same as the Good Lord gave us the greenhills and the softest rain to wet your young head..."  


"Pat. The man is bad. Just plain, nasty, bad. Nothing greenfields about him.  He cuts throats without even thinking.  They say he's part of some black magic thing.  Oh well, I hate garlic, but I've no doubt Ramona'll have us all in bloody necklaces of the stuff!"  


     They pored for hours over the Hoganmap.  Harris wiping off some spilt beer with his uncreased white handkerchief  _Harris - pertickler sod, but bloody clever_... granted  Richard Sharpe.  


    Night fell. The Chosen Men parted, not too far, to their own bivouacs, and fell also.  To dream, to sleep, to wonder, to worry, to wish....  Pat had no troubles, he and Ramona went up and down several times and Patrick fell unconscious, and Ramona smiled and then she fell asleep.  


     Three days later, straws having been drawn for the two other men to join Lt. Sharpe and Sgt. Harper, they had left.  There was Cooper, who was nearly as good a shot as Hagman, and Pat's compatriot Donal O'Dairaigh as backup.  Richard was happy with this.  He also had every confidence that the team he left behind would behave, and hopefully smarten up before his return.  Harris had promised to teach Perkins and Thomas to read and make their names.  Ramona had said she'd be mothering the boys in place of her Man.  


     So far, nothing but rumours. Despite quantities of small cash being expended, Sharpe's Spanish becoming ever more guttural by the hour, nothing was heard of a "Roosky"  or a "Nikkerleye" anywhere.   
  
A whisper came one evening.  A shepherd boy sleeping on one foot, the other wrapped round his crook for support, was woken by his sheep pushing past him.  He stayed silent, and still.  Wolves liked human flesh better than sheep flesh, but he could see and hear nothing.  But it had been a human he saw.  'A man, he could tell, for it was naked and strangely marked.  It had stood, arms outstretched as if in crucifixion, and it howled.'  The shepherd boy sobbed and fell to his knees, clutching Pat's legs as if he were drowning.  'He howled, not like a wolf... but like a wolf... it were long... and sad... so sad....' The shepherd boy sobbed, banging his head upon the ground.  


       Richard looked at his men,  "Where'd he come from?  C'mon lad... where did he go to?  Tell us, you're safe now. We'll find him and stop him frightening little shepherd boys. Where did he go?"  


      The boy sniffed, shrugged and wiped his nose on his arm. "He went, that way, he ran.  Not fast, but smooth like he liked running..."  His filthy hand described an arc of 300 degrees over a range of dark sharp hills.  


"Hey, be a little more pertickerler boy... Which mountain, which hill was he heading for?"  


Cooper sat beside the boy, a large wedge of cheese in his hand. "Here, point this here" he indicated the thin side, "at the hill he was running to, then you can eat it... but be very careful you point it at the right hill, because the cheese would make you very sick if you are wrong!"  


   The cheese was held, swivelled and rested on a gap between two shapes.  One rounded, like a _man's bum_... thought Sharpe, _Ramona's breast,_ thought Pat.   The other side of the valley was a hard, strangely bent shape. They all thought simultaneously _'Nosey's beak!'_  
  
Cooper rewarded  the boy, and he disappeared, still snivelling, but with a face full of cheese.  Cooper was rewarded in his turn by two (smaller) portions of cheese for his sacrifice.    


       The next morning, the shepherd boy and his sheep were far far away, and Sharpe and his men sat on a ridge within a day's march of the valley between a rounded bum/breast and the Duke of Wellington's nose.   Four days later, footsore, hungry, thirsty, filthy, and exceedingly grumpy, they rested just outside a small village.  There was no sign of any howling man.  Cooper was being asked for his bit of cheese back.  


      Richard Sharpe did the first duty watch.  He slept at his post. _Well, 'taint sleeping, I doesn't sleep, I jest sits and  listens like_...  He might listen, but he didn't hear anything, until a strong hand clapped over his mouth and silver glint of steel waved towards his throat.  A warm brown chuckle sank straight down to his groin.  


"Unngh unngh" A kiss on his mouth stifled any thought of raising a shout for help. It roused other things, and utterly subdued his wish for flight or fight.  


"It's you again!  Where the fucking hell did you spring from?"  


"I've been with you for five days. You're like a herd of wild elephants! When are you not on watch?"  


Sharpe squinted at the moon.  "Ooh, half an hour barely, I reckon. Why?  Where're you off to?"  


The whispers became a grunt.  "Ssssh!   I'll wait two cigarillos at the back of this church. Now it will be empty. We will be able to, in there. Do not make a sound, and do not fetch your friends, or I must slit your throat now. You would let me too... for another kiss?"  and the chuckle floated into the dark night.  


Patrick coming out, blearily wiping sleep off, found Richard wide awake spitting into a rag and trying to wipe his face and hands.  "What the hell... Richard?"  


"I think I smell Pat.  Do I?"  and he lifted his arms to sniff. "Christ, I fucking do...  or it's me uniform.  Neither of us have been washed in bloody weeks!"  Richard mumbled and grumbled off.   


       Pat scratched his head. 'Bossman's going travel-crazy. Needs a woman I reckon, unless he's got one near?'  Pat's mind roamed pleasantly with dreams of himself, Ramona, Richard and maybe some other rosy rounded doxy... He woke when Cooper dropped beside him.  


"Six of the clock and all's well, you should bloody hope so!"  


      They returned to the barn and broke their fast on stolen apples and onions. Donal, adding his share, had found a store of cow-turnips that he fried up in the last of their cheese. At midday there was no sign of Lt. Sharpe. Pat was wondering if he should barge into the local inn or brothel and demand to see his captain, when round the corner came the very man, jaunty, whistling, and walking in a strangely wide-legged fashion.  He refused a seat, but leant against the wall enjoying his fried 'turnip-apple-onion-cheesepie'  


  " 'Sgood Coops, bloody tasty!"  He straightened.  "Well, let's get the show back on the road. What do you all say to heading back towards home?  There seems to be no bloody chance of finding this goddammed howling Roosky killer. We've only a ten-day supply of rations, and that's on short stems. We'll never find this Nikkerleye, and we'll just have to tell Nosey we aren't bloody supermen. There's bloody _NOWT_ here."  


       They back-marched past Ramona's breast, under the Beak of Nosey in the wettest of downpours  known to humankind.  Richard annoyed everyone by continuously whistling six or seven notes, on and bloody on....  
  
   
"Yer tuneless son of a leprechaun, don't you _EVER_ shitting stop?" yelled Pat. "Ye'd drive the angels from the roof of the Vatican with yer whistling and perch them on Ben-na-Toa-eicht in bloody Londonderry..."  


        Tempers had not improved much by the time they had found shelter in a round derelict castle keep.  _Bloody Sharpe was damned well singing now!_  


        On their last day descending the final mountain range heading into Portugal, the sun was burning down. They stomped through dust that hadn't seen rain in a hundred years that dried eyes and noses, curded hair into clods of filthy soil in the head-sweat, and filled ears with bungs of clay.  Even Sharpe Lt. (temp. Major) had stopped whistling or singing so much!  


   Then the sky exploded.  Horses crashed into them at a wild gallop. Swords rose and fell. Yells, whoops and shrieks of horrible range rang over their heads as they instinctively fell flat. Cooper cuddled his rifle, useless now under his belly. Patrick held the cooking pot over his head, then his genitals, and then back to his head.  


        A red-booted foot descended on to Richard's back. ‘ _Oh-oh,’_ he wasn't whistling now.  His hair was pulled and his neck extended.  A voice in a language totally unknown but which had a lot of gargling sounds, seemed to create order.  Lt. Sharpe regained control of his head. There was the neighing of invisible horses, then they were rapidly and efficiently tied, trussed and bundled up onto the back of what seemed to be pack-animals.  Cooper's rifle was passed around the fifteen or so black-visaged bearded assailants, then lobbed aside as the trigger, having been pulled, elicited no explosion, just the 'snick-click' of an empty powder pan.   His ammunition pouch was looted, emptied and the powder and bullets trodden into the ground by a number of red-booted feet.

  
     In single file they scuffed up into the bare stone hills. The Chosen Men's rumps overheating in the sun from early morning until nearly sunset.   The mules halted, were hobbled and left to graze still burdened with sweating, cursing Riflemen.  Cooper wondered if his mule minded having piss run down its flank, but if it did, too bad.  There was a limit!  Cooper was not happy at all.  Somewhere in the distance, bloody Sharpe was whistling again.  _How in fucks's name could he whistle upside down on the back of a sodding mule?_   Donal had made the best of the time by composing filthy little lines to the tune, but even that had palled after four days, and now Cooper couldn't remember one filthy bloody line!

 _What was Sharpe doing, whistling?  Where in hell was he, and why wasn't he letting them free?_  The whistling ceased.  _Aah, socked him one.  They hate it too, just seven silly stupid notes.._..  


       Another fast moving horse.  Some shouted commands.  Silence except for the rustle-chomp of mules' teeth on herbiage.  The quiet thud of their feet. _Where_ _was everyone now_?  Cooper croaked.  "Hey, Men!   Me..." his voice ended with a creaking cough.  _Dare he take command - where was Patrick, where was Lt. Sharpe?   "_ Chosen... Men... to... ME!"    A muffled squeaky groan from Donal, _Well, he's alive..._  Cooper tried again, " 'At  'At… 'oo 'air?"  his throat was  horribly stiff, congealed; as was his tongue; no water for over a day, in this heat.  


   Silence.  A slip of a knife, a hand pulled.  Cooper thudded to the ground.  A few moments later another body crashed on top of him. _Irish Donal for sure._ With a heavy, bulkier thump and a whoosh of breath, Patrick sent a cloud of fine dust to feather the sky. The knife flashed, quivered in the soil between two heads. Silence again.  


       By dusk the three had freed themselves, and emptied the four wineskins of fresh cool water they'd found in the shade of the one stunted tree, They were now able to talk, and think more coherently.  Pat was the first....  


"They've got Richard, they'll be holding him for hostage like, to be sure.  They'll not be harming him, he's known to be too valuable to Nosey?"  


Donal was indignant "Begor, would they be after looking out for himself whilst leaving the likes of us all trussed like farmyard fowls, jest fer whistling?"  
  
  
There seemed to be so little to be done. They had no food, no firearms, only one knife,  No more water, and just four empty waterskins.  But they had feet, heads, brains and very hollow stomachs....  


 _Home!_   Pat decided,  _How in hell would we ever find Richard when we didn't know who, or where, or the why of it?  Let the Officers work it out, let THEM send the bloody Army out to look in this Godforsaken wilderness to find a man and a bloody howling ghost!_

TBC


	2. Fic:  Sharpe's Russian.  Chapter Two.. Back to Camp

Title               Sharpe's Russian.  
Author          [](http://bluegerl.livejournal.com/profile)[**bluegerl**](http://bluegerl.livejournal.com/).  
Archive          [](http://rugbytackle.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rugbytackle**](http://rugbytackle.livejournal.com/)  
Crosspost to [](http://sharpe-thinking.livejournal.com/profile)[ **sharpe_thinking**](http://sharpe-thinking.livejournal.com/)  
Category       FPS   crossover Sharpe /Luzhin.  
Chapters       2 completed..  
Rating            NC17   No warnings.  
Disclaimer     None of this anything to do with Mr.Cornwell.  I have a silly active mind, and I do hope Mr. C will not mind       my borrowing his Officer.  He is so nice to play with, and his friend..  
Comments.    As ever, Beta'd by my dear advisor, my friend and counsellor, and joy.  I have made the booboos.  
Summary.      Richard is given another thankless job by Major Hogan and the Duke of Wellington.

Sharpe's Russian  Back to Camp.

  
         The Duke of Wellington looked at three exhausted, drained, sad men as they lay, feet blistered, faces burned raw from the sun, and a sadness in their eyes as they admitted to having no idea where their Own Man had been lifted off to what hell, to what torment, or...   No-one mentioned death.  Lt. Richard Sharpe... never!  They'd even welcome the bloody whistle back.

                     ~~~~~~

          Richard himself, meanwhile, was not exactly injured. Somewhat sore perhaps, covered in certain bruises most definitely.  Exhausted, sated, quaffing lemon-tasting ice cold water, as his body was sprinkled liberally with the same, making his skin nakedly shiver.  He gazed at the decorations on that pretty back, that chest, those loins...

  
"Nikko.  What're they for, these patterns?  Do they mean something?"  His fingers stroked down to the star, there, on to that peculiar sun-shape... there.  


"Heeheeheh - don't!  That tickles." Nikko bared his teeth, lowered his head and bit Richard's shoulder.  "They're tribal things.  I've been part of a gang, a tribe for... oh, I don't know how many years.  My brother Gregori has been my Charge.  He is four years older than me.  It is my watch to guard him.  We must go through rituals and tests to obtain these.  When I have all the round ones joined with chains, then I will probably be so bloody old it will not matter anyway!"  


"Your brother, is he decorated too?"  


"Yes, we all are, some more, some less.  I'm classed as an 'Assassain' so I have these suns surrounded with lace patterns.  More lace, more dead men!"  


"Nikko.  You aren't, you're not the killer, are you?  You aren't this fucking wierdo we have been stomping all over goddammed mountains searching for for the last two bloody months?  Are you?  You were in the damned town the night before I was sent off to hunt you!"  


Nikko sat back and raised his arms, scratching in each hairy hollow.

"Yes, I did see you sneaking off.  The gold you stole has been retrieved, my love, but you will have something else in its place. You will like it, I promise it."  
  
  "We need the gold, the guns, we need this all.  Our army, the ‘Vory V Zakova‘, that means  'Thieves without the Law', but our name will be  'The Godfathers of Mother Russia'  one day, and we will be called upon to run our Country.  At the moment it is ruled so very harshly by Czars.  They are the same as your Kings or Presidents, but these are men of such bestiality and cruelty.  When any of the Grand Court pass, on horse or in carriages, we, the lowest of the low peasants, lower even than the animals they devour, have to doff our caps should we have them, bare our heads and kneel them to the frozen ground.  Then we must stay like that until they choose to leave our sight.  Someone has to be brave enough to lift their head to see if we can all raise ours, but if he is too precocious, the soldiers will come and strike off the head of he who is too forward, and the heads of those who are round about him.  This is our life, Ryszart Richard, we wish to be freed from this tyranny."  


"So you, what do you do, apart from stealing, robbing, and kidnapping English Army officers in order to fuck them to death?“  


"Me?  I _KILL!_    For gain, for mastery, for.... It used to be for pleasure, but now?   For duty, for my Country.  There is no pleasure in a business that seems to have no end.  It never stops... Death.   Gregori just likes me to kill anyone who displeases him. but I will not, not now."  He gave his sideways gap-toothed grin   "Now, I fuck 'em to death, so much, much more enjoyable!"  


Richard  was full of questions.  "You've been around us all this time, since we set off, almost?"  


"Almost.  Myself and two other men.  The remainder have rested up at our fortress up there."  Nikko waved a hairy muscled arm vaguely at the ceiling. "Did you not hear me singing a serenade to you a while back?  The shepherd boy did, I understand.  I am now a werewolf or something magically evil?"  A wild growl, and clutching claw-hands descended on Richard's nether regions.  


"I'd never've said...  ooorrf... you were... oooopmh... a werewolf killer, more " _(grunt)_ "like one of me..."   _(grunt,  grunt)_ "Orficers, dilettantes they are... ooof,    Aaaah… buncha po -- sers they… arrrghh..."  


"Bet they could not fuck like me, then.  Aah, not...  like...  _ME…_    I  kill, kill, kill, Kill, I _Kill, Kill,  KILL... K-I-L-L...  KILL!"_

         Waking slowly, an arm resting across a flat tattooed belly, sticky-moist with his juices released when he had screamed and let the world stop right there, with the beautiful sight of Nikko's suffused, sweating face.  


"You said you were...  singing?  The shepherd lad said it was a howling?”   Ryszart whispered,  “Will you sing to me now?"  


Nikko raised his head.  Wiped his mouth, and began.  A low, plaintive, deep-voiced chanting.  A sound lost of the forests, in the bones, musical.  Richard Sharpe's heart cried   _Hold!   Enough!_  


Then Nikko stopped.  "In your tongue it is as this... " he began again.  " _'The Sentinels of love are marching in Volkhanka, the Sentinels of love are awake in the Neglinnaya.  But things will be changed one day. Spring is making her way to Moscow, back through the dark Winter...' "_  


Richard waited, calmed his voice.  "Is that what you sang to the shepherd boy?"  


Nikko kissed his throat.  "No. I sang it to you, Ryszart.  I sang it also for my Country and for my men"

  
"But that tune, the notes we whistle, the seven notes... what is that?"  


" ' _Sleep my heart, my dearest heart_ '  It is a lullaby.  _'Sleep not too close to the side of the bed or the grey wolf will eat you..._ ' and I do not want a grey wolf or any wolves to eat you, or even what is left of you when I have plundered you and eaten my fill!"  
  
  
                      ~~~ o0o~~~

  
                    Richard stirred.  "What are we going to do, Nikko, eh?  Seriously? I could have killed you myself that first night in the town.  You were flat out, you'd never have known.  I couldn't now, however easy it could be with you unconscious from me having you.”  


"You wait, Ryszart, because I am going to make sure my brother is so unhappy with this heat, this poor broken country, that he is pining for the freezing blasts of air from the glaciers of the Dancers of the Northern Skies.  It is time we returned, Ryszart, to bother you and your little army no more.  One day, we will rise and our armies will defeat the greatest armies in the world.  Maybe not now, but we defeated Napoleon.  It was not easy, but we then had numbers, and when we are ready, there will be more, many many more.  Then our Mother will rise and sing Her Song."  


Nikolai smiled, softly.  The grey of his eyes matching the light of morning in the glassless window.  


"Think on me for the time we have spent.  I shall keep admiring my suns and stars, because I would remember your eyes beholding.  Your fingers touching me with wonder....  I will be gone soon - your Hogan will like his snuffbox, and the Georgian snuff I leave for him.  Your Lord Wellington will find a stash of Baker Rifles and their bullets purloined from the ship that was raided near Galicia last spring.  It will not be exactly under his bed but not too far away.  My men will not be seen.  They wear the Red Boots of the Vory V Zakova Nikolipishki... _MY_ Army."

"I have to say, Ryszart..." he paused, slowly running his hard brown  hands from Richard's ears to his shoulders, along his arms, over his chest, down his belly and long loose legs  "You are just beautiful.   Who will you find now to give you pleasure and joy when I have gone?  I fear it will be hard for you…”  He kissed the dimple in Ryszart's belly and licked down...  "It will be so very difficult for me too!"  


  
          The door closed.      How did he move so silently?     Richard Sharpe listened.   A faint seven-note whistle sounded…  
      
           The bell for Matins tolled, far off.

  
                                    ~~~o0o~~~  
  
  
        A month after Sharpe's return, unexplained, but cheered to the skies by his Men,  Lt. R. Sharpe was summoned to the Presence.  
  
       He presented himself, stiffly erect, boots polished, green trousers washed, brushed and mended.  The missing silver buttons on the almost new-looking jacket replaced and correctly buttoned.  


"Sir!"  He stared at the cloak hanging from the tent pole behind the hard black eyes.  He felt them gaze as he stood, feeling the weight of the stare proceed up his body  _Aha, the old bugger's still alive then.._. thought Richard Sharpe, ranker.  


"Sharpe.  Good of you to grace our camp with your presence.  I suppose it is no good, rather pointless in fact, to ask where, or what?  No.  Useless, and a waste of my time."  He looked down at a square of parchment, bearing a red seal.  


"Sharpe.  We, meaning His Lordships in London, wish to advise you , without a great deal of recommendation from myself, just a smidgin, you understand, that your temporary rank of Major has been confirmed. You are now Major (Probationary) Richard Sharpe of the 95th Rifle Brigade.  My congratulations, and my warning that you have two years of good behaviour before you."  The Grand Duke of Wellington allowed himself a small smile and a sideways glance at the Major (Confirmed) Hogan who was tapping a rather splendid gold snuffbox.  


"Oh, Sharpe, I understand you are somehow responsible for the recovery of that large cache of weapons and equipment.  It seems the weapons have been expertly cared for, and it was all in remarkably good condition.  Ahem, I suppose it is no good asking?  No .  Of course not.  Well then.  My thanks to you, Sharpe, not exactly all we asked of you, but Harper advises me that it would have been impossible to do more..."  


"Sir.  I apologise for, and very much regret indeed, that I was not able to get my hands permanently on this  -  this 'Outlaw'.  I hear rumours he has been very silent lately."  


Hogan sneezed quietly.  "Good snuff this, that Spanish stuff is fearsome..." and took another pinch.  


"That's all,  Sharpe.  Ahem… Major (Probationary) Sharpe, you may rejoin your men.  Don't spend your extra two shillings per annum too soon, it is two years, remember!"  


          Sharpe saluted smartly, turned on his heel and marched from the tent.  
  
 Wellington watched the muscled buttocks flexing as they moved. His officer's mind also registered the fact that Sharpe's Man had used a deal of boot-blacking and made those disgracefully supple blood-red calf-boots Sharpe had acquired and worn continually lately, to a far more reasonable browny-red.  They were still, well... quite...  supple...  
  
  



End file.
